The IowaWatch Connection

ByIowaWatch Staff |April 29, 2014

The IowaWatch Connection is a statewide audience engagement program under development by The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism-IowaWatch. The program was made possible through a $25,000 John S. and James L. Knight Foundation grant, awarded through the Investigative News Network.

The program involves developing a weekly, statewide news and public affairs radio program and a series of community forums that reach a broader audience for the stories IowaWatch reports. Jeff Stein, executive director of the Iowa Broadcast News Association and a noted Iowa broadcast historian, hosts and produces the radio program on a network of stations across the state. The program premiered July 5 with the first the 30-minute show appearing on several radio stations. To learn more about the radio program, visit the IowaWatch Connection page

In addition, the grant will allow IowaWatch to host public forums in select cities across Iowa to explore issues that have impact on Iowans. Upcoming forums include a forum in Des Moines and one in Iowa City to air the IowaWatch documentary “Breaking the Cycle: Meth Addiction in the Heartland” followed by a panel of experts to discuss how children are affected by meth addiction in Iowa and what possible solutions could be.

Many colleges in Iowa are seeing fluctuating numbers of reports in instances of sexual assault on their campuses, a spring 2018 IowaWatch/Simpson College journalism project showed. This podcast explores why that could be a problem.

ByJeff Stein and Lyle Muller |April 30, 2018

The IowaWatch Connection radio report, part of a statewide audience engagement program, premiered July 5-6, 2014, as a 13-week experiment that would spread reporting by IowaWatch.org to a statewide radio audience. Two-hundred programs had been produced as of the weekend of April 27-29, 2018. This is a podcast of the 200th program. It revisits two stories that took top honors in the recent Iowa Broadcast News Association awards contest:

First place: Farm and Business reporting, for a report on foreign farmland ownership in the Midwest that featured a Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting story on that topic. First place: General Reporting, for a report on Iowa’s capacity for future rail traffic.

ByJeff Stein |April 16, 2018

The IowaWatch Connection caught up with former Sen. Tom Harkin recently for a wide ranging interview about the influence of money, social media and other things that go with public service, plus work done at the Drake University institute bearing his name.

ByLauren Wade, with Jeff Stein |January 29, 2018

? The mix of University of Iowa students but also non-student, would-be homeowners who want to live in or near downtown Iowa City is out of balance, city housing and urban planning experts say. This IowaWatch Connection podcast takes you to people trying to change that. Read more: This IowaWatch report explains the problem in depth.

ByJeff Stein |January 15, 2018

Priorities at the 2018 Iowa General Assembly that started in Jan. 8 will clash, state legislative leaders said. Even when they don’t clash, there’s a question of how the state will pay for programming. At least agreement exists that two topics — water quality and mental health care — should get a lot of attention in the first part of the session, this IowaWatch Connection radio report explains.

ByLyle Muller, with Jeff Stein |October 30, 2017

White Iowans made strong gains in high school and college graduation rates, poverty, median family income and home ownership from 1960-2010 but black and Latino achievements in these areas grew far more slowly, or in some cases declined. This IowaWatch Connection radio podcast looks at ways some are trying to level the playing field.

ByLyle Muller and Jeff Stein |October 23, 2017

An Oct. 19 Revenue Estimating Conference report showing Iowa’s revenue projections for this fiscal year down $133 million from where they were anticipated primed the state’s gubernatorial campaign with a hot topic: how finances are being managed.

ByCindy Hadish and Lyle Muller, with Jeff Stein |October 16, 2017

The growing number of aging Iowans means more are dealing with Alzheimer’s disease. Some 64,000 in the state suffer from this disease at a time when Iowa is tightening its Medicaid system, which pays for long-term nursing home care for Alzheimer’s patients.